Generally, in conventional television receivers, menus can only be displayed sequentially. Therefore, a certain menu often can only be selected after one or more menus are selected. For example, a conventional television may display a "function selection" menu, a "sound selection" menu, and a "picture selection" menu. Also, in order to display the "picture selection" menu, the "function selection" menu and the "sound selection" menu must be first be sequentially displayed or selected.
Also, if a plurality of menus are displayed on the screen of a television receiver, many remote controls can only move a cursor along an X axis or a Y axis to select a menu. Therefore, if the cursor is located at the upper left portion of the screen, the cursor must first be moved along the X axis and then be moved along the Y axis to select a menu in the lower right portion of the screen. As a result, the coordinates of the menus are determined in advance, and the menus located closest to the cursor must be selected first. In other words, the coordinates of the menu could not be selected by moving a cursor along a diagonal line or a curved line. Thus, the accessing method for selecting menus is such that any arbitrary menu cannot be selected without selecting a prior sequence of the menus. As a result, selecting menus displayed via a conventional television receiver is time consuming and inconvenient.
Also, since the cursor cannot move along a diagonal line or a curved line, the locations at which the menus are placed on the screen of the television are limited. Thus, if a desired menu is disposed diagonally to the cursor, the cursor has to be moved to the menu by sequentially inputting some combination of commands to move the cursor along the X axis and the Y axis in a sequential manner. Thus, accessing the menus is difficult.
In addition, the shapes of the menus are limited to a few types of shapes such as rectangles, squares, etc. Therefore, the manner in which menus are conventionally expressed is limited.